Columns

Learning the ABCs was the way most English-speaking Americans began their journey in formal education.

After months of self-care, protection and distancing, and with Thanksgiving and the winter holidays just around the corner, now is the perfect time to remind our children of the benefits of connecting with others through acts of kindness and giving. Like so many skills we teach our children, compassion and kindness take practice. Through their committed practice, they also can bring our children great rewards, such as increased confidence, improved collaboration and social networking skills, and a greater sense of community.

For a guy who prides himself on being so smart, self-proclaimed kingmaker Steve Bannon does some stupid things.

Nothing is new about the corrupting influence of money in politics. It’s been about 150 years since Mark Twain observed, “We have the best government that money can buy.”

We have made significant progress in the battle against tobacco use and nicotine addiction since the 1960s with enormously falling rates of smoking among adults and children. Reducing the smoking rates and progressively making smoking socially unacceptable has been a comprehensive effort involving prevention and cessation programs, media campaigns, smoke-free air laws, increased cigarette taxation and FDA oversight. But all this progress is threatened with the introduction of e-cigarette use, commonly referred to as “vaping”, especially among youth; it’s nothing less than an epidemic among middle and high school students.

Many of us look back on our time at school with fond memories, but those who were frequently bullied might look back and feel differently. There are not many logical reasons why someone is bullied, but to grasp a deeper understanding of what bullying is, we also need to know how and why bullying begins.

Thanksgiving is fast approaching and I am looking forward to gathering with my family again since COVID precautions kept us apart last year. We’re planning our menu, which in addition to the usual fare, includes a large variety of pies. While I like all the food, I’m most excited to spend a few days with my dad, several of my siblings, and some of my nieces and nephews. We usually do some Black Friday shopping, play a few games, watch silly movies, and stay up too late talking.

The gambler in the Kenny Rogers recording by the same name offers some sage advice: “… the secret to survivin’ is knowin’ what to throw away and knowin’ what to keep.”

Last month, the Indiana Economic Development Corporation made public all 17 regional proposals for the state’s READI Grant program. Since the program was announced, I’ve been dreading this, primarily because I was confident the program would fall short of even modest expectations. The program was hurried through the General Assembly, and the time frame for this type of process was extremely short, just a few months.

Politico’s West Wing Playbook recently reported President Joe Biden has a “potty mouth.” I would have been surprised to read otherwise, but the breaking news gave some decent detail of his profanity habits for all the Americans who care to know such things. The story also threw in a predictable expletive tendency of Vice President Kamala Harris. The vulgarities of choice of anyone are meaningful to me, as a self-appointed guru of the art.